The substantial advancement of industrial technologies has brought people's material life to an unprecedented high level, and with it has come the desire to further enrich the spiritual life. Therefore, when a consumer wishes to buy a certain product nowadays would not base his or her decision solely on the product's price and functions, for attention is also paid to the physical appearance and style of the product. In other words, the product of choice is one which not only satisfies functional purposes, but also is visually pleasing and spiritually refreshing. Hence, a trend has emerged to place increasing emphasis on the esthetics of product design.
Recently, with the rapid development of the electronic industry, new display devices are released to the market on a regular basis. These display devices are configured for showing multimedia images or all sorts of data and information to conveniently satisfy users' needs in work, learning, and entertainment. As such, display devices are now indispensable in many people's daily lives and consequently have a considerable market size. In order to meet consumers' various requirements for display devices and comply with the aforesaid market trend, display device manufacturers have spared no effort in making changes and improvements esthetically and are in constant pursuit of a unique eyeball-catching design that will give its manufacturer a competitive edge in the market.
FIG. 1 shows a display device in the shape of an animal. The display device 1 has a housing 11, a display screen 12, and a decorative element 13. The housing 11 houses all the necessary electronic components (not shown) of the display device 1. The display screen 12 is installed on one side of the housing 11 and is configured for displaying multimedia images or all kinds of data and information. The decorative element 13 is provided on the sides of the housing 11 and has a special design. As shown in FIG. 1, the decorative element 13 is modeled as a giraffe to lend a sense of fun, cuteness, and uniqueness to the style of the display device 1, with the intention of grabbing consumers' attention and stimulating the desire to purchase the display device 1. However, a display device manufacturer must in each consumption cycle provide its products with some novel looks so as to stay in line with fashion, keep the products new, and thereby secure its market share. If the decorative element 13 is integrally formed with the housing 11, molds must be reproduced each time the look and shape of the display device is to be renewed. It follows that production costs will be tremendously increased and that a vast storage space is required for the molds. Moreover, if the decorative element 13 and the housing 11 are integrally formed, it is impossible for a user to replace the decorative element 13 alone when only the decorative element 13 is damaged. The user must in that case replace the entire display device 1 or put up with the damaged look, either of which is highly undesirable.
To overcome the aforesaid drawbacks, some have redesigned the display device 1 and made the decorative element 13 detachable. Therefore, once the specifications of the housing 11 of the display device 1 are determined, the decorative element 13 can be produced with a different design whenever the manufacturer wishes to give the display device 1a new look, provided that the decorative element 13 conforms to the specifications of the housing 11 and can be assembled to the housing 11. In doing so, not only can production costs be greatly saved, but also decorative elements of the same series (that designed for the same housing 11) are interchangeable, allowing consumers to purchase and replace the decorative element 13 as desired. This detachable feature has boosted the market competitiveness of the display device 1.
Referring again to FIG. 1, the detachable decorative element 13 is typically made of expanded polyethylene (EPE) foam, polyurethane (PU) foam, ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) foam, or the like. While such foam materials are advantageously lightweight, resilient, and crush- and impact-resistant, the differently shaped foam-made decorative elements 13 can only be compressed to a limited extent and may have problem being stacked in a compact manner; as a result, both storage and transportation costs are high. Apart from that, the detachable decorative element 13 is typically configured for engaging with the housing 11 by way of physical structures. Therefore, once the foam-made decorative element 13 has been detached and reattached for many times, the portion of the decorative element 13 that is designed to engage with the housing 11 is very likely to get damaged, thus compromising the durability of the decorative element 13, and this demands further improvement.
As stated above, when the decorative element and the housing of a display device are integrally formed, the manufacturer cannot restyle the display device without making new molds, which adds substantially to production costs, and a user is not allowed to change the decorative element of the display device as desired. However, when the decorative element of a display device is made detachable, the typically foam-made decorative element may still cost the manufacturer dearly in production, storage and transportation because of the limited compressibility of the foam material and the difficulty of compactly stacking decorative elements of various shapes; not only that, the foam-made decorative element is subject to damage after long-term use. Hence, the issue to be addressed by the present invention is to solve all the aforementioned problems of the prior art by providing an innovative structure which enables a manufacturer to change the design of the decorative element with ease, which allows the decorative element to be compactly stacked for convenient storage, which greatly facilitates connection between the decorative element and the housing, and which helps the manufacturer reduce the costs of production, storage, transportation, and assembly while enhancing the convenience of use, variability, and durability of the decorative element.